Pest alert helps track changing climates

A Cornell University “trap network,” begun in 1994 to alert farmers when
damaging pests were on the fly in 60,000 acres of sweet corn across New York
State, may now provide a second, unlooked-for service by helping researchers
track how these pests could respond to changing climates.

Corn earworm is typically a late-season pest of sweet corn in upstate New
York. Earworm adults—pale brown moths—migrate north each year, often
arriving in mid-August. During the first years of the trap network this left
the special pheromone traps, set up in July to monitor earworms, empty for
several weeks.

But an unexpected outbreak in Eden, New York, in June, 1999, prompted
researchers at the New York State Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program
and Cornell Cooperative Extension to start looking more closely. Since then,
low numbers of earworms—with occasional spikes requiring sprays—have
consistently turned up in traps in western New York from early June until
the migratory flight kicks in during August.

“This is the sort of thing we anticipate seeing as climates shift,” says
Abby Seaman, a vegetable IPM educator who began the trap network. “We expect
that insects will expand their range and reproduce more quickly. The network
is giving us an idea of what pest pressure might look like in the future.”

No one's sure yet if these early trap catches mean that corn earworm
moths are overwintering in Eden, Seaman notes. “But higher trap catches of
corn earworms trigger shorter spray intervals,” she says. “Since IPM
management recommendations for corn earworm are based on trap catches, it's
clear that earworms are already costing some farmers more than they did nine
years ago.”

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